This time of year I always feel slightly wistful as the summer months start to truly fade with the Labour Day weekend just ahead. I still feel that old “back to school” pattern of wanting to get new binders and markers ready for the school season bubbling up. My children will tell you I have well and truly satisfied that itch and I am already well-stocked with colourful binders, markers and paper.

Today I want to share with you a new video about “The 3 Essential Building Blocks for Creating Conversations that Count.”. I’m sharing some of the concepts and tips from my new book, Lead Conversations that Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings.

TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO

In today’s video I’m going to share with you another tip, an idea, from my book Lead Conversations That Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings. The reason I wrote this book is I think we need to take our meetings and conversations, and relationships up a notch, especially in busy organizations, where we’re trying to do really great work. It’s just getting very complicated because everybody’s just stressed out and we just started talking past each other too much these days.

So today’s tip, and idea, is about having the three building blocks of a conversation that counts. So let me tell you about what a conversation that counts  is NOT. You might have experienced one of these recently. It is the kind of meeting where it lacks a purpose. Did we need to have the meeting?  When you get in there, there’s always crazy dynamics of how people participate. The loud people are dominating the conversation. There’s a whole bunch of people who are just so quiet, you don’t know where they’re at on an issue. This is true just as much in-person meetings as it is in virtual meetings. It can be really tricky. So how do you navigate those power dynamics?

Another challenge is spending a lot of time talking and yet nothing really changes. So lacking clarity because you don’t have a good structure for that conversation to pull out the ideas, decisions and how we’re going to implement them after the meeting. So I want to share with you three important building blocks.

The first is about Intention. This is especially important now that we’re looking at how we are going back to work. Some people will still be working remotely. Some people will be in the office. It’ll be different. This is a perfect time to really be rethinking our intentions about what we want this meeting to look like and what do we want people’s experience of it to be at the end.

Taking that time for you, as the leader who is responsible for running that conversation, to make sure that you’re doing something that’s actually designed for the purpose and the people in the room and what you need to do, and not rote. You’re not just doing things because that’s how we’ve always done them. Crucial to this intention is to realize that the most important thing that we need to do is to really respect people’s time and their attention.  It needs to be earned. You don’t just get it automatically just because you’re somebody’s boss or manager or director. You need to really make sure that you’re making the best use of people’s valuable time and attention. That’s principle number one, intention.

The second principle or building block is about Relationships. At the core of doing great work together is great relationships. We want to make sure that those conversations are not just about getting stuff ticked off a list, which makes it more of a transactional kind of experience. Instead, people are really at the core of how you hold that conversation. People trumps process. Make sure you’re building in times for connection, and to have that human contact. I know it’s a little harder to do in the virtual space than it is in the in-meeting physical room, but it’s really important to build in that time to warm up the energy and to strengthen and feed the relationships amongst the people on your team. That’s principle number two, relationship.

The third building block is about thinking about it as an Ecosystem. A meeting is never just a meeting. There are people in it and people are dynamic. There are issues, and people are responding, they’re reacting. There  is a whole bunch of things that are going on. What are you doing to really support a healthy psychologically safe ecosystem in your team? How do you create the space to do that so people can do their best work?  Not so that they are feeling like their voices are not being heard, or that what they think doesn’t matter or make a difference in the long run. It takes planning beforehand, but that ecosystem is a space where you need to be prepared to respond in the moment to what’s happening with your team.

So, there you have it. I hope those ideas are helpful for you, these building blocks. So again, just to recap: Intention, Relationship and Ecosystem.

Thanks so much! If  you have any other questions or comments, please feel free to send me a little email or make a comment in the chat, and if you like to talk about how you can lead conversations that count, please reach out to me, I’d be happy to connect.

Have a great day!